Doctor Who writer Neil Gaiman tells Tim Martin how he was asked to make
Cybermen scary again for this Saturday's episode.

The Doctor's Wife,the first episode Neil Gaiman wrote for Doctor Who, is considered one of the best instalments in the resurrected series. It won the coveted Hugo and Bradbury awards for science-fiction and fantasy drama as well as an ecstatic reception from viewers and fans.

But Gaiman, whose prizewinning fiction includes the Sandman comics, Neverwhere, Coraline and The Graveyard Book, says that a repeat engagement was initially far from certain.

“I said to my wife, ‘This was 11 drafts, it took 18 months of my life,'" he told The Daily Telegraph. "'If I ever threaten to do another episode, please tell me not to.’”

But then,” he continues, “The Doctor’s Wife started winning awards and becoming this thing that people loved. And I started thinking, well, actually, if I never do another one, everyone in the world will think that every episode I could have written would be just as good. And there’s an awful lot to be said for doing one and cocking it up - or doing another one and getting it good. I felt like I was just starting to figure out how to do it by the time I finished writing The Doctor’s Wife.”

Saturday's episode, set in a sinister abandoned themepark and featuring performances by Warwick Davis, Tamzin Outhwaite and Jason Watkins, came about when series head Stephen Moffatt sent Gaiman what he describes as “probably the perfect email". It was just one sentence: "Would you like to make the Cybermenscary again?”

The request cast Gaiman back to the Doctor Who of his childhood, when, he says, the Cybermen and the Daleks held an unquestioned monopoly on infant terror. “I remember the first time I ever saw a Cyberman,” he says. “It was freaky. And silent! It came and took somebody from the sickbay on a moonbase and went away. And I thought, I really would like to make them scarier again.”

Writing the new episode started as an attempt to recapture that sense of dread, but soon became as much about Matt Smith’s Doctor as his glittering silver adversary. “I love writing for Matt,” Gaiman says. “I think he’s genuinely one of the smartest English actors today, and I got him to do some really cool stuff. I can’t explain it without giving too much away, but I asked a lot of him and he delivered.”

All will become clear on Saturday evening, when Nightmare in Silver screens on BBC1. But should we all be quailing behind the sofa in anticipation? “I got slightly distracted by a few things,” Gaiman admits, “so I’m not really sure if I actually made the Cybermen scarier. I may not have done. But I did an awful lot of other things along the way.”